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“I’m sorry.”
Huck shrugs like the past doesn’t really matter. “It wasn’t so bad. Not all the time. There were others. Not Hydes or Jekylls. A snow leopard shifter. A pair of sprites. Rare creatures. He had us locked in a secret room, but when he wasn’t there, we could talk and tell jokes and things. The snow leopard—” A fond chuckle escapes him. “She was a bit older than most of us. Besides the sprites, anyway. She liked to tell us stories at night to help us go to sleep. Like a family, you know?” He falls silent for a few moments. “Sometimes he’d bring his friends back to see us, though. He liked to make me change into my Hyde for them. Or do… other things.”
Nausea rises and Creepy snarls as the pair of us read every possible horrible implication into those two small words.
Huck doesn’t look away from the windows. “Zeb says the man treated us all like carnival attractions.”
Gods. I search for absolutely anything to say after all that, and I come up drier than the Sahara.
Suddenly Zeb’s earlier words return to me. He said they “picked up” Huck, like they’d just found him somewhere. It’d seemed an odd way to phrase it at the time. “Were Zeb and Phineas the ones who, um…”
Huck nods. “They got me out.”
There’s a tight quality to the response, and I think I know the answer before I even ask. “And the others? Your—” Gods help me. “Your family?”
Huck is quiet for a long time. “When Zeb and Phineas broke in, the rich man started killing them. He was trying to kill all of us so that no one could take us from him. Phineas tried to save more, but… I was the only one he could heal in time.”
I’ve got no words, but in the back of my mind, Creepy is mumbling about her desire for tasty justice, along with how she wants to snuggle our sad Jekyll who almost died.
Shivers radiate through me. He’s not our Jekyll.
But I still reach over, gingerly placing a hand to his. “I’m so sorry.”
Huck freezes. I worry suddenly that I’ve crossed a line. If he’s been through half the things I fear he might have been, touch might not be comfortable for him.
I start to pull back. “Sorry. I?—”
His other hand comes to rest on mine, stopping me. For a moment, neither of us moves, like we’re frozen on the precipice of something I don’t really understand.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
Creepy rises up in me like a wave pushing at the flood wall of my control, and in spite of myself, a trace of her green tone tinges my hand while my nails shift until they’re partway to being black and sharp like hers.
Huck’s breath catches, but a smile tugs at his lips. Icy-white skin lacking any trace of color ghosts around where my hand rests, and his fingers elongate just a bit.
The shivers inside me get stronger. Warmer. Tingly in a way I’ve never felt. It makes me want to move closer. Maybe to let Creepy come out entirely.
Maybe just to hold him and let him hold me.
Because the tidal wave of this situation is starting to drag me under, and I’m having trouble remembering why it’s a bad idea to let that happen.
I force a breath into my lungs, and I pull back. “So you and Zeb…” I tuck my hand into my lap. “You’re… together?”
A second passes before Huck gives a small shrug. “He’s there when the nightmares wake me. And I… I like touch. And other things. It’s nice when it’s Zeb. Safe.”
Gods, if that rich bastard isn’t dead already, I’ll find him and gut him without even needing Creepy to show up.
Huck suddenly looks at me, that wary concern back in his eyes. For some reason, though, I swear it’s like he’s worried I’ll draw farther away. “Does your Hyde have a name?”
I hesitate, thrown by the shift in the conversational direction. “Um, yeah. She’s, uh…” Self-consciousness pushes at me. It’s a family name, and there’s no reason it should be strange to me.
But then, I haven’t shared it with anyone of my own kind before.
“Creepy,” I admit finally. “Creepy Mabel is… well, her name but… my Hyde. You know.”
He nods, but he doesn’t look like he fully understands.
“What’s yours?” I prompt.
